In Praise Of Nothing Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of In Praise Of Nothing book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.
This is the fi rst work devoted to an expositi on on Daoist metaphysics and presenti ng Dao as a feminine principle. The work should be of interest to scholars and general readers in many disciplines: Comparati ve philosophy, religious studies, metaphysics, Asian studies, Chinese studies... etc.
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER A critically acclaimed, intimate and no-holds-barred memoir by Canada’s top defence lawyer, Nothing But the Truth weaves Marie Henein’s personal story with her strongly held views on society’s most pressing issues. Marie Henein, arguably the most prominent lawyer in the country, has written a memoir that is at once raw, beautiful, and altogether unforgettable. Her story, as an immigrant from a tight-knit Egyptian-Lebanese family, demonstrates the value of strong role models—from her mother and grandmother, to her brilliant uncle Sami who died of AIDS. She learned the value of hard work, being true to herself and others, and unapologetically owning it all. Marie Henein shares here her unvarnished view on the ethical and practical implications of being a criminal lawyer, and how the job is misunderstood and even demonized. Ironically, her most successful cases made her a “lightning rod” in some circles, confirming her belief that much of the public’s understanding of democracy and the justice system is based on popular culture and social media, and decidedly not the rule of law. As she turns fifty and struggles with the corrosive effect becoming invisible has on women, Marie doubles down on being even more highly visible and opinionated as she deconstructs, among other things, the otherness of the immigrant experience (Where are you really from?), the pros and cons of being a household name in this country, opening her own boutique law firm, and the commoditization of women’s previously unpaid labour popularized by the likes of Martha Stewart. Nothing But the Truth is refreshingly unconstrained and surprising—an account by a woman at the top of her game in a male-dominated world.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell Pdf
Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of "In Praise of Idleness," a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. With characteristic clarity and humour, Russell surveys the social and political consequences of his beliefs. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defense of 'useless' knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, " In Praise of Idleness " is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.
Shells, leafwork, picture frames, hummingbirds, wallpaper decorations, hems of clothing—such are the examples Kant's Critique of Judgment offers for a "free" and purely aesthetic beauty. Menninghaus's book demonstrates that all these examples refer to a widely unknown debate on the arabesque and that Kant, in displacing it, addresses genuinely "modern" phenomena. The early Romantic poetics and literature of the arabesque follow and radicalize Kant's move. Menninghaus shows parergonality and "nonsense" to be two key features in the spread of the arabesque from architecture and the fine arts to philosophy and finally to literature. On the one hand, comparative readings of the parergon in Enlightenment aesthetics, Kant, and Schlegel reveal the importance of this term for establishing the very notion of a self-reflective work of art. On the other hand, drawing on Kant's posthumous anthropological notebooks, Menninghaus extrapolates an entire Kantian theory of what it means to produce nonsense and why the Critique of Judgment defines genius precisely through the power (as well as the dangers) of doing so. Ludwig Tieck's 1797 rewriting of Charles Perrault's famous Bluebeard tale (1697) explicitly claims to be an "arabesque" book "without any sense and coherence." Menninghaus's close reading of this capricious narrative reveals a specifically Romantic—as opposed, say, to a Victorian or dadaistic—type of nonsense. Benjamin's as well as Propp's, Lévi-Strauss's, and Meletinskij's oppositions of myth and fairy tale lend additional credit to a Romantic poetics that inaugurates "universal poetry" while performing a bizarre trajectory through arabesque ornament, nonsense, parergonality, and the fairy tale.
Against War and In Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus Pdf
Starting off by teaching about the heinousness of war, Erasmus convicts us all about the tendencies of our violent and sinful nature in the face of God's love and justice in a world consumed by war. Next he takes us on a journey showing what benefit heresy and falsehood have for strengthening the church and making us who believe in God realize what is truth and what is not.
First published in 1939, the original blurb reads: We have learned much lately concerning theories of laughter, yet laughter is only what we do about comedy. What is comedy itself? In this work the history of comic instances is combed in the search for the truth about comedy. Today, when laughter is stifled in so many countries, an exposition of comedy shows it to have a universal and necessary character. Comedy, as its natures reveals, is one criterion of the state of human culture; it is highly contemporary and requires freedom – but freedom for adventure, not for routine. After a chapter devoted to the explanation of a logical theory of comedy, the modern comedians are examined, and the humour of every one, from the Marx Brothers to surrealism, from Gertrude Stein to Mickey Mouse, from James Joyce to Charlie Chaplin, is shown to be a constant, inherent in the same set of unchanging conditions.
In Praise of Dharmadhatu by Nagarjuna,Rangjung Dorje Pdf
Nagarjuna is famous in the West for his works not only on Madhyamaka but his poetic collection of praises, headed by In Praise of Dharmadhatu. This book explores the scope, contents, and significance of Nagarjuna's scriptural legacy in India and Tibet, focusing primarily on the title work. The translation of Nagarjuna's hymn to Buddha nature—here called dharmadhatu—shows how buddha nature is temporarily obscured by adventitious stains in ordinary sentient beings gradually uncovered through the path of bodhisattvas and finally revealed in full bloom as buddhahood. These themes are explored at a deeper level through a Buddhist history of mind's luminous nature and a translation of the text's earliest and most extensive commentary by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339), supplemented by relevant excerpts from all other available commentaries. The book also provides an overview of the Third Karmapa's basic outlook, based on seven of his major texts. He is widely renowned as one of the major proponents of the shentong (other-empty) view. However, as this book demonstrates, this often problematic and misunderstood label needs to be replaced by a more nuanced approach which acknowledges the Karmapa's very finely tuned synthesis of the two great traditions of Indian mahayana Buddhism, Madhyamaka and Yogacara. These two, his distinct positions on Buddha nature, and the transformation of consciousness into enlightened wisdom also serve as the fundamental view for the entire vajrayana as it is understood and practiced in the Kagyu tradition to the present day.
In Praise of Failure by Costică Brădățan,Costica Bradatan Pdf
Success is all very well, but failure teaches us what is most important: humility. Costica Bradatan tells the stories of four thinkers who, for all their external success, courted failure throughout their years. From Simone Weil to Seneca and Gandhi, the greatest of us made meaningful lives by grasping the epiphanies of failure.
Bestselling author and MIT Professor, Alan Lightman, reveals the benefits of wasting time and allowing our minds to freely roam. We have apps, smart watches and calendars that constantly remind us to be productive and stop wasting time. We have created a frenzied lifestyle in which time is money, with not a minute to be wasted, and the twenty-four hours of each day are carved up, dissected, and reduced down to small units of efficiency. Professor Alan Lightman documents the rush and heave of the modern world, and examines the many values of ‘wasting time’ – for replenishing the mind, for creative thought, for finding and solidifying the inner self and letting the mind lie fallow without attempting to accomplish anything and without any assigned tasks. Carl Jung did his most creative thinking and writing when he took time off from his frenzied practice in Zurich to go to his country house. Gustav Mahler routinely took three or four-hour walks after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Albert Einstein described letting his mind ‘roam’ to make connections between concepts that were previously unconnected. In this timely and essential book, Professor Alan Lightman investigates the creativity born from allowing our minds to freely roam. In Praise of Wasting Time teaches us all that sometimes, the best thing to do is to do nothing at all.
Why do we keep playing the lottery when we know we’ll lose? How does what we laugh at—those bad jokes, wry allusions, and nasty pratfalls—tell us who we are? And what happens when, through some unforeseen mishap, we lose our identities and become Jane or John Doe? Eric LeMay explores these and other questions in fifteen innovative essays that center on the American self. From reflections on small-town life and baby-making to meditations on found art, 19th century landscape gardens, webcams, and the emergence of the AIDS pandemic, these essays celebrate the layered selves we inhabit, inherent, and sometime invent. With humor and with reverence, In Praise of Nothing beholds what Wallace Stevens has called the “nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
“A welcome antidote to our toxic hustle culture of burnout.”—Arianna Huffington “This book is so important and could truly save lives.”—Elizabeth Gilbert “A clarion call to work smarter [and] accomplish more by doing less.”—Adam Grant We work feverishly to make ourselves happy. So why are we so miserable? Despite our constant search for new ways to optimize our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally and reaching for a bar that keeps rising higher and higher. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can’t we just take a break? In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile. Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.
In Praise of Devon is an evocation of the unique character of the county and its people. John Lane eloquently describes Devon’s rivers, coastline and moors; its towns, villages and buildings; its beautiful images and objects, traditions and occupations—from Dartmoor to Devonshire dialect, Church Bells to Cream Teas, Honiton Lace to Holy Wells—and gives intimate sketches of the lives and values of twenty Devonians, including farmers, a trawlerman, a doctor, a cook, the sculptor Peter Randall Page, potter Clive Bowen and scientist James Lovelock. The text is complemented by 140 colour plates:?photographs, engravings and old master paintings of the Devon countryside.
What ancient polytheistic religions can teach us about building inclusive and equitable futures At the heart of this book is a simple comparison: monotheistic religions are exclusive, whereas ancient polytheistic religions are inclusive. In this thought-provoking book, Maurizio Bettini, one of today’s foremost classicists, uses the expansiveness of ancient polytheism to shine a bright light on a darker corner of our modern times. It can be easy to see ancient religions as inferior, less free, and remote from shared visions of an inclusive world. But, as Bettini deftly shows, many ancient practices tended to produce results aligned with contemporary progressive values, like pluralism and diversity. In Praise of Polytheism does not chastise the modern world or blame monotheism for our woes but rather shows in clear, sharp prose how much we can learn from ancient religions, underscoring the limitations of how we view the world and ourselves today.
Today, the word prejudice has come to seem synonymous with bigotry; therefore the only way a person can establish freedom from bigotry is by claiming to have wiped his mind free from prejudice. English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole.
